Monday, February 2, 2009

PGK wanna know , WHY are you smiling?

Do you ever have friends in secret bands ? It's interesting because you know people for one reason and them BLAMMO! You see another side and that side is so good it kicks your ass to next year.

I've known Anna and Meeloo , aka Bongoût for a few years via the international network of underground screenprinters. We'd done the swapping thing : posters and books in the mail , showing side by side in group shows , taking part in various books they'd published and met face to face in 06 , in Antwerpt during Dramarama , a festival / workshop curated by Jelle Crama (check this guy's art out , it will seriously melt your brain ) . They , my partner and I immediately hit it off and since then we've visited them at their Berlin flat several times to shoot the shit , cook elaborate feasts , collaborate on art , hunt for rare books , go to shows , and have them take us on WW2 and communist tours of the city.

During one visit they mentioned casually that they had started playing and recording some music together.And that was it , we never heard more about it.

Until this past spring. We were at Slowboy in Düsseldorf , a place that is 3 of my favorite things at once : gallery , record shop and silkscreen atellier when either Gunther or Andreas asked if we had the Bongoût record yet.

We hadn't .

It came out a year before but neither of us knew it existed . We're not the only ones. With 300 copies pressed , not a single live show and no North American distro , I'll willing to bet that no one reading this has a copy. And that's a shame 'cause it's one of the best things i acquired in '08.

Their band is called PREUSSISK GRÄVLING KLUBB , or PGK for short , the record is called "Bugs". Anna is Swedish , Meeloo is French and they live in Berlin. Minimal + noisy art damaged electro, cold +_ austere. It might be been recorded in a wind tunnel , but that's most of Berlin. That's even more cold and austere because of Anna's Swedish accent. The lyrics are simple , repetitive and rather bleak , when you can make them out from under the distortion. The record knows it's depressing so it makes up for it with catchy beats to toe tap along in melancholic fervor.

Perhaps even dance.

In "Wasabee Pea" Anna asks "How can you be so upset?" over and over until I genuinely start to feel upset , tense , paranoid . And wonder what the hell I DID last night to be in such a state , must have blacked out again cause my lids are heavy and my mouth's fulla cotton but I'm brimming with twitchy energy that won't go away. I'm agitated and ready to party in a cold warehouse full of half naked skinnies with hairdos. My lips are turning blue! I need another cuppa tea and to listen to it again.

I wasn't upset before ! Now I'm upset because the record in almost over .

Cold Wave ? More like Arctic wave. Get yourself a parka and some vitamin d , the sun ain't coming out for a while.